Every AEW Title Reign Ranked From Worst To Best
6. Riho - Women's Title
This is where the excuses don't much wash.
There was no unprecedented global situation to navigate in 2019. AEW had a heel antagonist for Riho on pay-per-view, in Emi Sakura, who was hugely experienced. The less experienced but very talented Jamie Hayter, a great, nasty heel, was an ideal opponent for a TV mini-series that couldn't materialise as a result of Riho's split schedule.
And yet, Riho's run was, in part, a critical and commercial success: her title win and Full Gear defence were fabulous, emotional struggles, and she was an early ratings hit in the female teenage demographic.
Perhaps with hindsight we should have been nicer to Sakura. In wrestling matches that went as long as the men's matches, a not inconsiderable number of which were lowkey damn good, she gave many critics then what they are asking for now. The Freddie Mercury call-and-response stuff was batsh*t for a heel to do on telly, mind.
Though, given the immense history shared between Sakura and Riho, the same criticism can be levied at AEW itself. This is the big indictment. AEW, not unfairly accused of failing to even try to tell stories in the Women's division, had a very rich, emotional and real story from which to draw at Full Gear. Sakura trained Riho from the age of nine.
This intimate connection and the trajectory of Riho's career informed the awesome velocity of every breathless reversal and the manifested jealousy of those gruesome backbreakers.
No video package.